Baby W and Mummy’s 7 month update

Last week baby W turned 7 months old eeeek! Before starting this draft I thought not much had changed in the last month but I guess it has….

Weight/health etc

I’ve had him weighed twice in the last month – he now weighs 16lb 8oz – every so slightly under the 25th percentile where he’s been since he was born. He now has 5 teeth! (2 more than the last update!)

He’s had a healthy-ish month apart from a lingering cough/cold that he’s had on and off for a couple of months now. Keeps coming and going (and is at its worst when he’s teething). You’ll be pleased to know that he poos 2 or 3 times a week now instead the once a week explosion he was doing 🙂

Milestones

He’s pretty good at sitting up unaided now.

Still lots of rolling and clambering around but not crawling yet.

He loves standing up (with this hands being held!) and he still loves bouncing whether being held or in his jumperoo!

Feeding and weaning

The biggest change this month has been that we started weaning. You can read our latest update here – it was going quite well until I wrote that update but since then he’s gone off his food a bit… unless it’s a finger of toast… I don’t think he’s ever refused buttery toast!

He still has 4 milk feeds a day – one first thing, one mid-morning, one mid-afternoon and one before bed (about 6.30/7pm) – still combination feeding, mostly breast but a bit of formula too 🙂

Weekly and daily routine

I’m finding our daily routine has been all over the place since we started weaning – as feeding can take an extra hour or two of our day (including prep) so has a knock-on effect on naps etc.

Our weekly routine stayed much the same as what I wrote in our last update but as we enter December, the classes and groups are coming to an end in line with the end of my maternity leave

Sleep

You’ll know that we’ve never had great sleep, well in the last month we definitely turned a corner. We had one night where baby W slept through til 5.45am! And a couple of nights he’s slept through til 4/5.

I was always against ‘sleep training’ as I thought babies will sleep through when they’re ready. However, I was also aware that baby W waking every 2-3 hours was not for hunger, it was just for comfort. Through a mix of mothering instinct, the book ‘no-cry sleep solution’ and emailing Lisa Clegg (blissful baby expert) we tried:

-giving him water instead of milk during the night

-and/or getting him back to sleep through shushing/patting him etc, then leaving him (I often find that he cries more when I’m in the room with him!)

And these have largely worked although teething and coughing get in the way quite a lot 😦

So we’re not quite there, but we’ve definitely turned a corner!

What else we’ve been up to

• This month my other half was away a LOT with work, and had a work-related exam. Tough times for us all, as he was busy and stressed and missing spending time with W. And I felt like a single mum for a good few weeks – very tiring!
• I had my first weekend away from baby W and survived! (actually really enjoyed it! Read about it here)
• Lots of settling in sessions with the childminder, including a full day – these have gone really well, I’ve felt fine leaving him and he’s had a good time over there!
• Keeping in touch days with work – I did a couple of these over the last month – was nice to catch up with everyone 🙂
• Lots of autumnal walks with baby W and baby W had an underwater photoshoot!